Navy Capt. Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer for the USS Theodore Roosevelt, has a new job for the moment, Task & Purpose has confirmed.
Crozier was fried on April 2 after the San Francisco Chronicle published a memo he sent to his superiors warning that his sailors would die unless the majority of the aircraft carrier’s crew were placed in individual quarantine ashore.
For now, Crozier is serving on the staff of Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Cmdr. Ron Flanders, a spokesman Naval Air Forces.
“He arrived last night,” Flanders said on Tuesday. “He is assigned as a special assistant to the chief of staff at AIRPAC.”
Flanders was unable to say for how long Crozier will remain in his current assignment.
Navy leaders had wanted to reinstate Crozier as captain of the Theodore Roosevelt following a preliminary inquiry into the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak aboard the ship, but now the service is launching a deeper investigation into the matter.
Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Robert Burke has until May 27 to provide the investigation’s findings to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, said Gilday’s spokesman Cmdr. Nate Christensen.
“It will take additional time for the investigation’s recommendations to be reviewed and endorsed by Adm. Gilday,” Christensen said in an April 30 statement.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he has told the acting Navy secretary to “follow the facts wherever they go.”
“Whatever this information comes up to … it has to be able to survive the scrutiny and all the questions that are out there so that we know everything that happened and we hold flocks accountable,” Esper told reporters on Tuesday during a Pentagon news conference.
